Dr Dilantha Gunawardana is a molecular biologist, who graduated from the University of Melbourne. He moonlights as a poet. Dilantha wrote his first poem at the ripe age of 32 and now has more than 1700 poems on his blog. His poems have been accepted/published in Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry and Ravens Perch, among others. He was also awarded the prize for "The emerging writer of the year - 2016" in the Godage National Literary Awards, Sri Lanka for his first collection of poems (Kite Dreams – A Sarasavi Publication), while being shortlisted for the poetry prize. Dilantha is a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and Australia, and shares his experiences from two different cultures. He blogs at - https://meandererworld. wordpress.com/

Down the holes of the flute
Escapes the wind from the flutist’s mouth
Crafting a sensual passage of whistling wood.
As the sound of music takes mercurial notes
And adorns them with magnitude,
Making me forget the ticking clock,
The pacing heartbeat, and the drumbeats
Of a hungry abdomen.
As I move into my own zone,
Like those mice in Hamlin, who crept out, their feet
Trained by the music to march,
As the high-pitched wind, steals my present,
How to become blissfully effortless,
To let the flesh embrace the levity,
Of nothingness, a score nevertheless,
That finally ends on a high note, that cliffhanger
That is almost orgasmic,
And briefly surreal.

You own two home libraries
One inside your study, the one with encyclopedias
Atlases and dictionaries and a whole
Heap of science books that you used to read
While a student. On the other end of the house
You have another library, just next to a wash bowl,
Where you have old Reader Digests editions
And Time magazines, which are always treats to read
Even when you’re too stuffed with
Fried Rice and some Spicy Chicken Curry.
You have gained in knowledge from both libraries
But what stands out with Library No 2,
Is that, it is the only place, you can beat
The clock fair and square, a heart-clenching story holding
You hostage, and you letting time prostrate
On a lazy Sunday morning, when your wife
Is still sleeping. And now you realize that you were never
Told how potty training long ago, could turn you into
A full-fledged book worm, who is always proud to admit
How he reads from his glorious throne.
A man coroneted by the airy gunfire of colon burps,
While he sits on a throne, abdicating
A lengthy string of muscled poop.

You think of the war veterans,
Especially the POWs who spent years
In Hanoi Hilton. You see glimpses of pain in their open eyes,
Hard exteriors that will never move
An inch, holding the fort, the rampart
Bullet proof, while their barrel chests
Grow outward in their autumns and winters.
Here, there is no more camouflage and prowling snipers,
Only their grandchildren holding
On to their palms, asking for a Christmas gift.

All they ask for is a little respect for their courage,
To have been darting through
Plumes of Agent Orange
Lurking through blades of elephant grass,
Holding a rifle around the shoulder.
They now spend their Sundays in church,
and all they ask for is a pension,
To spend on their morning coffees,
And evening teas, and some dollars to buy
Their grandchildren Christmas gifts.

How purple are the oxygenated arteries,
That flow out of the heart,
Of men, decorated with purple hearts,
Of the type of bravery that is selfless in execution.
Now they sit sipping hot beverages,
While one by one, knock off infinitely,
To become cargo to the courier angels.
Veterans, who will never forget the war,
Sharing little anecdotes,
That get passed around, mouth to mouth.

And what else but the commemoration of the anguish
As they saw dead bodies splattered on the ground,
But overcame it, to become unsung heroes,
Who defied everything thrown at them.
Heroes that get forgotten in this American west
As they become the organic fertilizer on a cemetery
Where wild flowers grow, as if to show
To the world, the beauty that is buried beneath,
Soiled in true valor. How courage only, could
Save the deplorables, hated equally, by the enemy
And by the home turf, caught in no man’s land,
As outcasts, now waking up on loaded minefields,
Where nightmares explode like
Claymore mines, to reminisce the horror of what
The eyes gathered, as the clutter of war.

Supermarkets in town,
Are decorated red, green and white
Regiform snowflakes everywhere you look
Making the Christmas deceptively white,
In this tropical country, that has never seen snow.

All the while, the cashiers at supermarkets
Wear Santa hats, letting goods slide on, down a counter,
Almost like a conveyer belt,
In Santa’s toy factory in the North Pole,
While open carrier bags fill up,
In mince pies, turkey and smoked ham
Stocking up for Christmas.

While a lone Santa looks on
Almost like a poster boy for obesity
Posing for photographs,
As the children laugh in banter
At the sight of a jolly old man
With a long silver beard,
And a ballooning tummy,